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News 12’s Jenn Seelig takes you inside their Port Washington facility on this week’s Made on Long Island.  

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Made on Long Island: Spectrum Designs Foundation in Port Washington  

All right. They are a nonprofit that makes custom screen printed apparel that gets shipped nationwide. And Spectrum Designs foundation, employing people with autism, giving everyone in the workplace a purpose. Our Jen Zelig takes us inside their Port Washington facility on this week's made on Long Island. Apart from that, that a t-shirt, a pan, a mug becomes so much more than just that because it changes someone's life through the job that it provides. Patrick Bardsley co founded Spectrum Designs in 2011. He started the business to embrace neurodiversity. The business was really born out of necessity myself as a co founder with two mothers who have Children with autism, who are Children who are now adults are facing an 80% unemployment rate and just saying we have to change this and uh there you go. You did it. You did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people on the spectrum, they just want to work and it's just hard to find employers that want to hire them for who they are. Kelly Fisher is Spectrum's marketing specialist. She dreamt of being in a leadership role and feeling valued before that. She felt like she was hanging by a thread while finding a job that accepted her for who she was. I was always told I wanted to be able to go to college, get my license and I did all that and now I live on my own. So yeah, the job has just helped me accelerate where I am today when someone like Kelly comes to you and you see the talent and you almost feel lucky that someone else missed it, promoting opportunities, acceptance and inclusion with the push of a button press release every day has something new going on, whether it's a customer or a new piece of artwork that inspires us to create. There's always something fresh, they make apparel for local small shops and big companies like Uber and Google. No water is too big or too small. We want to just keep the machine spinning so that we can create as many as possible. This one is for you in Port Washington Jens. Swap Long Island. What a great story that.

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